Friday, 14 June 2013

Rachel Abrams by John Podhoretz

John Podhoretz has written a moving piece about his sister, Rachel. This is the first paragraph:

When her oldest, Jake, was a baby, my sister Rachel once told me, she would go into his room and watch him as he took his naps. One morning he cried out in his sleep, and she awakened him. “I wasn’t going to let him have any lousy nightmares,” she said. Only she didn’t use the word lousy. After all, why use a five-letter word when a four-letter one would do? That was Rachie’s motto. And that was Rachie. No child of hers would have a nightmare if she could help it. No child of hers. No child of our sister Naomi’s. No child of our sister Ruthie’s. No child of mine.